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A Quick Chat With Phon.o and his fabric x 50 Weapons Promo Mix

This coming Saturday night the sounds of Berlin based imprint 50 Weapons will come to grace Room Two for the entirety of the evening's party proceedings. It's kind of impossible to summarise the vibe across every single record the label has released, due to the huge scope of artists on their roster which contains the likes of Shed, Marcel Dettmann, Addison Groove and even Thom Yorke's other project Atoms For Peace and ensures that the spread of techno tinged music they've released has immense range to it. But, what we can say for certain is that the 50 Weapons seal comes with a reputation as a mark for quality and to instigate movement on the dance floor.

For the event in question the artists selected to rep this 50 Weapons feeling are some of our favourite; Room Two regular Cosmin TRG is set to return alongside A Made Up Sound as well as Phon.o who this spring has dropped a pair of fresh EP's on his home label and who has also recorded this club focussed mix to show us what we can expect from his DJ set at the weekend. You can listen to that in the player below while we also have a quick catch up with the ever evolving producer as we discover how Cracking Space Pts 1 & 2 marks a desire to set out Phon.o's true sound and finally work in a lifetimes worth of musical influences along the way.

So you've just released Cracking Space Pts 1+2 - can you tell us a bit about those releases?
I released Cracking Space Pt.1 on the 28th of March and Pt. 2 two weeks ago. On both releases I tried to continue my quest into the deeper zones of club music; combining influences from UK House, Garage and Berlin Techno I tried to manage to further define my own sound. Both EPs have a strong narrative that manage to work on the dancefloor as well as on the home stereo. Or, simply speaking: I hope it will work for the girls and the boys.

There's a few collaborations on the EPs - how did they come about?
Last year when I was touring Asia I met the guys from Bass Sekolah. We just recorded some vocal takes in an easy session deep in the Malaysian jungle. I tried to keep that mood of this night and came up with "HereNow" at the end. On Moonwalk I asked my old buddy Kit Clayton – who was in town for a few days – to ad some weirder chords on my existing ones. He just added some chords but really great ones. Both session were big fun because there was no pressure while recording it.

What influences would you say are motivating your production at the moment?
Puh that's a hard question. There is just so much interesting music at play here and not just one particular artist or style. I take my influences from different parameters like sound aesthetic, harmony and grooves. Somehow I've become more and more eclectic and have been mixing all the influences I've gleaned from electronic music of the last 25 years.

What's on your home player at the moment? Does it compare much to what you'll be selecting in the club on Saturday?
I've been listening to way more relaxed stuff at home like a lot of old Warp stuff like Aphex Twin, Autechre and weird electronic music like Patten, Oneohtrix Point Never, Fatima al Quadiri and so on. If I am driving a car then I prefer more clubby music and technoid bangers.

And what else can we look forward to from Phon.o this year?
I'm going to finish 2 other EP's I've been working on and later on I'm going to try to start making the next album.

And can you introduce your promo mix for us - how'd you go about putting it together?
It's always hard for me to do a proper DJ mix at home because the lack of a missing crowd and strong sound system. You also get too analytical while recording it at home.
I tried to imagine being in the club and just did it in one take. So maybe that's why it starts slow and nasty and turns into a more technoid, bassy mix.